Sunday, July 18, 2010

The Shift: Remembering and Forgetting

Collective human cultural amnesia is the way of the world. We already know everything we need to know -- we’ve just forgotten much of it. In this extraordinary time, much of the rush of contemporary life seems to be also stampeding us into a kind of forgetfulness even as the incredible expansion of human knowledge continues. Perhaps the purpose of this emptying is to make way for a deeper, more lasting type of knowledge. Let's hope so.

In terms of our own personal spiritual journeys, the Russian mystic Gurdjieff often spoke of remembering as one of the most important aspects of the path to greater awareness. From that we can extrapolate a bit to our collective life from both a cultural and civilizational perspective. This process of remembering and going deep into the collective psyche becomes critically important in times of great stress and chaos such as what we are living through now.

As the information about the Shift surfaces in our collective consciousness from any number of sources (some surprising),this knowledge is coming into focus to help us through this extraordinary and at times extraordinarily difficult time. It represents a resurfacing of forgotten perennial wisdom at its deepest levels. This ancient wisdom is the most practical advice we can have to enhance the spiritual journey at this time.